Tuesday, 2 March 2010

I have a little quiz for you. Let’s start with the following three questions.1. What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky? 2. You stick your poles inside me. You tie me down to get me up. I get wet before you do. 3. I come in many sizes. Sometimes, I drip. When you blow me, you feel good.

Get your minds out of the gutter. The answers to the above questions are 1. Bubblegum; 2. Tent; and 3. Nose.

What’s the entertainment of choice when you have 20 strangers gathered in a communal living area of a chalet, drinking wine? Well, on our ski trip last week, the answer seemed fairly obvious to HRH. You play a game called Dirty Minds. But you don’t wait until the children go to bed. No sir. You don’t even include the adults. You play it with four children under the age of 7. Scrumptious entered into the communal fun, giggling and turning somersaults, with responses like lollipops for the first question (good effort) or a water fountain for the third (huh?). But as you can imagine, there were a fair share of party poopers in the room and the reaction to this dubious choice of games was mixed. A group of teenagers huddled in one corner snickering and blushing, the middle-aged parents tutted and tssked and muttered something about the innapropriate nature of this game, and a handful of single 30-somethings tried to play it cool and enter into the festivities, with mixed results. The only innocents were the children guessing the answers.

So here's the question. Was Dirty Minds a misguided parental attempt at fun? I guess the answer depends on your state of mind. For Scrumptious and her little friends, it was just a good old-fashioned guessing game. Maybe it’s a lesson for us adults. Kids don’t see things the way we do and we’re happier for it. Let’s celebrate their innocence and not rush them into adulthood.

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About Me

I am a common garden variety housewife, an American (no, I will not apologize), married to a Brit (His Royal Highness HRH). We have two fabulous daughters, 14 (Truly) and 5, (Scrumptious) and a perfectly delicious little dog (the Royal Hound). We are living the dream in the heart of Nappy Valley, Southwest London. Like life, it's a work in progress and this blog is about the journey.